Friday, 29 July 2011

Burglary and police numbers

Burglary is on the increase as the hard times bite; a 14% increase last year alone signals that taking other people's property is a growing fad amongst the nation's feckless and hopeless. The government reaction seems to have been to encourage householders to kill more burglars. Morally, such an action is only defensible if a householder truly believes his own life or that of his spouse and children are directly threatened and reacts to protect; the death of the burglar is not an intentional outcome, but a consequence of an action taken with the full protection of the law and the Church. But sooner rather than later householders will start looking at paying for some sort of organised service to prevent and detect this particular crime, perhaps called a 'police force'.

Ah yes. We have one already. But one for which preventing and detecting burglary comes somewhere in the list of priorities beneath encouraging racial diversity, rehabilitating drug offenders and prosecuting people for being rude to police horses. So when the head of the Police Federation warns against police cuts as impacting on the prevention and detection of an increasing tide of burglary, he is met with a universal public snort of derision; "You don't do anything anyway!" comes the response.

This of course is the consequence of the growing remoteness of the police from the people who pay their wedge. Their operational priorities are set not by the ratepayers whose homes need protection but by a cabal of away-with-the-fairies policy makers completely out of touch with local priorities. Look, if I hire a security guard and tell him his job's to stop unauthorised people from coming in, to deter people from stealing materials and watch for hazards and threats I don't expect him to sniffily respond that actually, he'll be concentrating on preventing the workers from lifting things in the wrong way and injuring their backs, making sure the hazard lights on the plant are working properly and offering stress-reduction classes for the site engineers. You know he'd be off the site quicker than a Bulgarian transvestite. So why do we let the police do it?

Most burglaries are only reported because the home owner requires a crime number for their insurers. So where there is no insurance, or where the damage is minimal and its not worth making a claim, there is no report.

Why do we put up with the police, indeed, why do we put up with our preposterously inane and arrogant politicians?

Because, The EU elites [with whom they always had much in common - a greater EU 'aristocracy'], has taught them well.In Europe 'police' forces - always were apart, more a quasi militia and always aloof - quite different to the ideas of Robert Peel's civilian force.This insidious European-isation of our police, means that they are now in place, to protect the elites and maintain and oversee the blind obesaince of the public. In other words, they've switched sides and the Bliar nu scum administration - can take all the blame [although moves were afoot before the nu scum coup - the red Tories didn't have the bottle]. So, our nouvelle 'police SERVICE' now carry out the wishes of our masters - this involves upholding their [elite] social mores [witness the NoTW hacking palaver - stuff and nonsense but the elites have to have their privacy] and hackneyed Marxist inspired PC dogmas of the ruling elite in Britain [as you've pointed out Raedwald].

This is where each group's [public v political class/chatterati] priorities, to say the least "differ", in their antithetical perceptions of what they wish, uniformed civilian officers upholding the law - to be.

Can we bring a halt to any of it?

Richard North has a blog about EU moves to censor blog sites - perfect opportunity for the new Stasi surveillance teams to cut their new sharpened teeth.http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/07/always-reason.html

Crime rates? = "you must be joking mate, we've got far more important things to do!" said Cressida.

the task of the police forces is to protect the central state and its agents. it was never that of protecting the citizens. at any rate, effectively protecting the citizenry would require enormous resources and brainpower that police forces will never possess. this should be obvious to anyone who pays any attention. your house gets burglared, your car stolen and you get mugged? cops are never around, and afterwards do absolutely nothing about it. and if by any wild chance the police apprehends the burglar, he is sent, at your expenses, to some rehabilitation program. or freed in a hurry by some soft hearted judge. after all, burglars are merely victims of society and of social and economic disparity.but try to forget paying a tax, or inadvertently committ one of the many victimless crimes that exist in every modern criminal code, the cops will be after you for life, and chase you even in hell.cops arent there to protect you, Sir. they never were, and never will be.

It fails to amaze me that ppl like anonymous above and it is constant on British blogs, that the EU is to blame for all of British ills, you are a sovereign state, have your own police force and local MPs.

If you have a quick look at Inspector Gadget, http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/depressingly-familiar-uk-police-locked-in-time-warp-shock/ you will find that many of the problems arise from edicts promulgated by the Association of Chief Police Officers and their ilk. The targets eliminated by Theresa May - they have just been renamed and still exist.What is needed are more people like that sheriff in Arizona - but then he is elected by the locals to do local policing.

Liberista is correct: when he/she says the police are not there to protect us, he/she is dead right. I wish I could find the reference, but it is the case that the police are indeed not specifically obliged in law to protect the individual. Just as well, since as has been pointed out, even if there were a police officer permanently on every corner (ghastly thought) this could not guarantee one's personal safety.There is a bogus social contract between government and citizens, whereby the former undertakes to look after us in exchange for preventing us from owning the practical means to defend ourselves: it's not easy to become a licenced firearms owner, and it has not been possible to give self-defence as a "good reason" to own guns since this was stopped in the 1950s by adminsitrative fiat. Then there's the business of "reasonable force", so if you bash a burglar seriously or terminally, you end up in court having to prove you used only "reasonable force" (a variable commodity) on the same basis as some career criminal who's bashed someone in the commission of crime.It's a stitch-up, a con, and government gets away with it because most of us are too indolent, too apathetic, too ignorant, too wedded to lounging on the sofa watching narcotic TV, to give a shit.

Some human life is worth more or less than others, surely? And there are quite a few human lives I would value less than my stuff, so if I saw some lowlife trying to remove it illicitly... I'm not saying one should blaze away on the slightest pretext but I do think one has a duty to help maintain an ordered, rational, civil society by resisting/restraining forcibly - possibly terminally if pressed - the criminal propensities of a very few. It's about property rights too, as Brian M says.